Finally, a rap that I can relate to.
Archive for category General
Design Coding
Apr 2
Einstein's Logic Problem
Dec 18
As I was cruising my Google Reader last night, I came across this interesting logic problem.
It’s purported that Einstein said 98% of the world’s population could not figure out this logic problem.
There are 5 houses each with a different color. Their owners, each with a unique heritage, drinks a certain type of beverage, smokes a certain brand of cigarette, and keep a certain variety of pet. None of the owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigarette or drink the same beverage.
Clues:
- The Brit lives in the red house.
- The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
- The Dane drinks tea.
- The green house is just to the left of the white house.
- The green house’s owner drinks coffee.
- The person who smokes Pall Malls raises birds.
- The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
- The man living in the center house drinks milk.
- The Norwegian lives in the first house.
- The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
- The man who keeps a horse lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
- The owner who smokes Bluemasters also drinks beer.
- The German smokes Prince.
- The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
- The man who smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.
Who owns the fish?
I was able to figure this out in about 10 minutes. How well will you do?
It has been pointed out that I actually predicted the iPhone two years ago.
I bought my first iPod on Thursday, June 9, 2005. The following day, I wrote this:
The real magic is the iPod itself, though. I couldn’t understand what was such a big deal about iPod when reading reviews, but after having it in my hand for five minutes everything was clear. This really is one ingeniously designed technological wonder. I wish Apple would make cell phones. And tv sets. And cars.
And apparently I wasn’t far off with my next comment, about tv sets, given my positive experience when I first looked at Apple TV.
Google Presentations?
Sep 18
Google has added slide-based presentation capabilities to their Google Docs suite. I noticed it this morning, and while I haven’t dived into it headlong, I played with it a little bit. Seems to work well enough for my needs.
With email, calendar, word processing, spreadsheet, and now presentation software, Google has essentially created a free, online version of Microsoft Office. While none is as feature-rich as the commercial Microsoft product, they are all quite capable — certainly good enough for me in almost every case.
And Google offers collaboration abilities that Microsoft (to my knowledge) does not. Most of the confusing menus in the MS Office programs are things I shall never use, but the collaboration and sharing of Google documents is something I do use currently.
Now the question is, will it make a difference? I’m sure that large corporations, for example, will keep up with Microsoft Office, keeping current versions and staying up-to-date on licensing. But there are a lot of small businesses (90% of businesses are small businesses) out there that can’t afford, or can’t justify, buying new versions of all their software every year, and they can’t keep up with the complicated licensing.
Since I, for one, don’t own or use Microsoft Office at home, I have turned to alternatives. Open Office is quite good, but it’s huge and slow, and for the purpose of creating a document or spreadsheet, I already find myself turning easily to Google Docs for speed and simplicity.
And that’s the bottom line for me. Whether or not Google has any impact on Microsoft’s bottom line is irrelevant, because they’ve already succeeded by creating a suite of online apps that handle all of my daily online tasks. And I’m not alone.
My gripe about IT recruiters
Jun 27
I’m a highly skilled person, and I have a relatively desirable skill set, so I tend to get a lot of phone calls and a lot of emails from IT recruiters… and there’s something that’s been bugging me for a while now.
If I’m looking for a job — and why else would you be contacting me if that’s not your assumption? — then it stands to reason that I’m going to be most interested in what kind of jobs you might be able to offer me. ¿N’est-çe pas? Yet for some reason, these people always send a form-letter email, obviously hand-crafted by some PR lunatic from a planet where the sun never sets, that tells me two sentences about the job and two pages about the recruiter!
For example:
Hello Randall,
I am a recruiter withSelf-Righteous Staffing, Inc.Self-Righteous Staffingis a Fortune 1000 company with over 20 years of experience in the staffing industry. We offer a choice of opportunities that will utilize your experience within some of the world’s top companies. With the latest resources, salary comparisons, interview coaching, and resume preparation, we’ll help you find the position you’ve always wanted!I have a developer position available in Armpit, US. It is a 6-month contract-to-hire for a Java developer. Let me know if you’re interested.
We continuously open doors to top quality positions for professionals with your skills. We provide our candidates with exceptional service and treat individuals with personal respect.
Self-Righteous Staffingis the employer of choice for many of the most qualified professionals in your industry.Call or e-mail me today to learn about the immediate opportunities listed above or many others. Or, if you know someone that would be the RIGHT match for
meanie, please feel free to forward this e-mail.Sincerely,
Fred Flintstone
Senior Staffing SpecialistSelf-Righteous Staffing, Inc
So is it just me, or does it look like the second paragraph was written by someone else and inserted later? Of course it does, because it was! The PR department took a big defacate on a piece of paper, planted tulips in it, and handed it to the management who said “yes, we’ll use this!” Then, the one technical person in the office built it into the email program so the recruiters could merge the job description into the document and send it. Unfortunately, I have to read that whole thing just to find out that there’s a Java job available in Armpit, USA.
News flash: There are Java jobs available in every expletive city in the U.S. of A. If I’m not going to be working for Self-Righteous Staffing, Inc, then I really don’t care about your company. I’m not impressed by terms like “Fortune 1000” and “over 20 years”. And who decided that there could be senior staffing specialists? You’re a phone jockey. A glorified salesman. Stop posturing.
I want to know about the place in the Armpit of the US. I want to know if I’ll be sitting in a tire factory smelling molten polybutadiene while writing software to track suicide attempts in the plant, or if I’ll have a comfortable, air-conditioned office in a financial center where I’ll write accounting software. I want to know if they wear suits and ties, or bibs and flanels. I want to know if there’s a real, honest-to-god owner and president, or if there are just a bunch of disenfranchised stockholders and a self-important board of directors.
Is it really asking that much?
Steve Jobs style
Mar 6
How to Dress Like Steve Jobs is entertaining enough, but you aren’t having real fun at his expense until you play the Steve Jobs dress-up game.